With Sunday coming up and with the Seminary sending out new pastors, here’s a question I’m often asked. “Does the Seminary teach students to preach in or out of the pulpit?” This ranks right up there with the other great questions of the universe. Why does God hide Himself from us? Why does God permit suffering? How can Christianity claim to be the only true religion and only way to heaven? Yup, preach in or out of the pulpit?
We have chapel services on campus every weekday. Most sermons are delivered from the pulpit. I don’t know what our other preaching professors teach but the question always comes to me in my classes. There are, I answer, logistical considerations. For example, if you’re standing in the aisle, can the people on the flanks or in the balcony see you? There are deeper considerations. What is the congregation used to? If they’re used to one way or the other, is this an issue worthy of controversy? Ask the elders, I tell them. But going farther, students, why do you ask? It’s a big issue to some of them and I’ve learned that they imagine that standing out of the pulpit somehow means being relevant. I also hear lay people say, “We love our pastor. He preaches out of the pulpit.” Huh? The real issue is what he’s preaching. A compelling sermon from God’s Word will be compelling wherever it’s delivered. A sermon of theological jargon that doesn’t speak to life will be irrelevant wherever it comes from.
So as I write this, it comes down in my mind to this. To congregation members: Are we so at home with one worship style that we get upset by something different? Aren’t we driven to come to church by this question, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) To students: Don’t make the pulpit the hill you’ll die on or off of. Instead, make God’s Word so applicable to people’s lives that they’ll listen intently wherever you are. In or out? Sounds like a belly-button question. Maybe it is naval gazing. I’d really like to know why God hides Himself.
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